Well, now that I have recently told you I was going to begin training for my second half marathon, I should probably let you in on another piece of my journey. It was just 7 months ago that these were my shoes for nearly 8 weeks!
Yes, I know. It was not my idea of fun after working so hard to get the weight off and get to the point where I was, but it was something that had to be done if I was going to enjoy my new body and be able to use the feet that were attached to my new looking legs.
Many might wonder what was wrong with my feet anyway? I had severe bunions on both feet as well as some bone spurs that needed fixing. Not a day went by that my feet didn't hurt in some way. Blisters would come and go.
Now, most people when having this type of surgery are encouraged to only do one foot at a time. In fact, it's hard to find a good podiatrist that will operate on both feet at the same time. For some reason, God knew I needed to be with the doctor I was with. She was the BEST! She listened to my worry and concern about not being able to do any exercise and basically being sedentary for many weeks. She told me because of how far I'd come, and what my body was now trained to do, that it would be more of a mental battle than anything else. She didn't want me to have to go through it twice, so she actually encouraged me to get them done at the same time. She thought that doing one foot, waiting six to eight weeks and then diving in and doing the other would only push my recovery process out by an extra 2 months. It would be that much longer before I would be back to doing the active things I had recently discovered a love for doing.
So all said and done, I've only been running on these new feet of mine for a few months. It's been very sporadic as they have been trying to make a full recovery. I was given the okay by the doctor just a few weeks ago to run on them as I wish but with caution. I'll admit, this first week of my training schedule for my half marathon has been brutal. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around the idea that I've already done this once before. In some ways, it's like starting from scratch. Being out of breath, feeling like a 4- mile run was the hardest thing I've ever done, and feeling depleted as a runner were only a few of the things that went through my head this week. Then I can't help but think about my journey and what I've already been through. I am comforted to know that I've already done hard things. Very hard things. And as long as I can continue to train my mind to only focus on what it should and not start catastrophizing on the things of the world or the tricks my mind so readily wants to play on me, I will be fine. I CAN do this! I WILL do this! One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. (Yes, I even had to sing that to myself while running down the road yesterday.)
